To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Table of Contents
Introduction and Background
In order to understand the basis behind To Kill a Mockingbird, it is important to know a little about the author. Additionally, an awareness of the time period and the issues that were important to society during that time period can provide insight into the work that would otherwise be overlooked. In Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926, Nelle Harper Lee was born. The town was small and sleepy, having similarities to the fictional town of Maycomb, Lee's setting for To Kill a Mockingbird. Much like Atticus Finch, the novel's protagonist, narrator, and father of main character Scout, Lee's father was also an attorney. Lee also had childhood friends who would grow up to be famous, included Truman Capote. He became an essayist and novelist, and was also Lee's inspiration for Dill, a character in To Kill a Mockingbird. An interview done in 1961 however, Lee stated that she was not intending to portray her own childhood. She was simply creating of a town in the South, which could, essentially, be any town. Despite that assertion, there are still parts of the book that have been shaped by events which took place in Lee's life when she was a child, or that happened to others she knew or heard of during that same time period.
Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in New York. She had moved there to focus on her writing career, and she published the book in 1960, just before the civil rights movement in the United States reached its peak. At the heart of the book is a trial, similar to one that took place during Lee's childhood in Alabama. It is, according to some, the epitome of the difficulties between black and white individuals and a clear indication of the racism that was rampant in the country during that time in history. There are mixed opinions on To Kill a Mockingbird when it came out in print. Some found the novel to be unconvincing, and did not enjoy the narrative voice. Others found it to be too moralistic in nature. Still, the book became very popular in the 1960s, mostly because of the civil rights...
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